I haven’t had the best week, so in an effort at being grateful, I am writing up this week’s wrap-up. Mostly what’s been wrong this week is my bad attitude and my exhaustion, all caused by a lack of quiet and what is often referred to as “down time” in my life. My constant busy-ness has resulted in stress and burn-out (again! why do I let this happen over and over?), and I’ve got to figure out a way to balance my responsibilities. While I’m pretty sure I’m not going to find an extra ten or twelve hours to add to the twenty-four I already get, I don’t know. Maybe I can figure out something to let go. (The obvious response here is blogging, I guess, but I consider writing cathartic, so bear with me. . . )
1. Monday was chilly but rain-free (which is unusual lately), so we took off mid-morning to our favorite nature trail. Here the girls are resting and enjoying their first glimpse from the trail of the Tennessee River. We had a good time, even if climbing the huge hill back to the parking lot reminded me of just how out of shape I am. I really, really, really want to inject more physical activity into our days, but most days I’m at a loss how to fit it all in. (Do you detect a theme here?) I’m glad that on Monday I chose the better thing.
2. One thing that often gets left off my weekly wrap-up posts is the girls’ music lessons, but their practice actually helps make up the backbone of our days. Here Louise is working on adding chords to a song she wrote lyrics for. The girls usually practice in the mornings right after breakfast and chores, and while I’d love to tweak our schedule to push the practice to later in the day, the reality is that too often when it doesn’t happen first thing, it doesn’t happen at all. Lulu was tickled to have assigned to her this week a song about a woodpecker. Her delight, of course, was because of our backyard friend. This week I’ve enjoyed hearing the strains of “How Great Thou Art,” one of Lulu’s assigned (and favorite!) pieces. I’m also thankful that Steady Eddie took Louise to music on Tuesday night, which freed me up for number 3. 
3. On Tuesday night Lulu and I went to a kids’ book club meeting at one of our libraries. The book up for discussion wasThe Invention of Hugo Cabret, and while I think Lulu liked it, I think she honestly would’ve rather been at Nana’s, which is the usual Tuesday evening activity. She did get to play on the Scholastic website in the library’s computer lab which is always a treat, but other than that, I don’t think she was too impressed. This really isn’t so much a reflection of the program as it was Lulu’s age (I think) and her bent. Oh, and her love for spending time at Nana’s.
4. On Wednesday I was intent on getting our stuff done, oblivious to the weather or anything else outside my home. Then I read this post of Alice’s and her reference to an “unusually warm January day,” and I immediately stuck my head outside and changed our lunch plans to include a picnic on our new picnic table (a Christmas gift from my sweet brother-in-law). We ate our PB & Js and goldfish, and then I read a chapter of Adam of the Road before we went in for an abbrieviated rest time. The weather was glorious!
5. After the girls had about 30 minutes of quiet time, the three of us went back outside while the DLM napped. The girls ran around, picked flowers, and made a willow twig broom (inspired by Laura and Mary, of course) out of wild onions and a tree limb. I read my Bible (Philippians 1 has been my meditation this week) and a novel for the Armchair Cybils. This was a bright spot–reading outside while the girls ran around and enjoyed the fresh air and sunshine. Lovely.
6. That very same afternoon, we loaded up and headed for Lulu’s piano lesson, stopping at Sonic for happy hour (half-price drinks and slushes, for the uninitiated) on the way. The girls got lemon-berry fresh fruit slushes, while I enjoyed my Dr. Pepper with the good Sonic ice. Instead of going inside at piano lessons, Louise, the DLM, and I sat outside on a quilt I had brought along for just that purpose. Louise and I played a game of Tens Memory while the DLM worried the cat. I usually count on time during piano to work on something with Louise–reading or math. Most days it works out, too.
7. Lulu and I are still working on geometry in RS C, and we’ve also hit the concept of fractions pretty hard this week. I really like the way RS slowly introduces a concept and ties concepts together.
8. Monday morning was a big day in the world of children’s literature–the ALA Youth Media Awards (i.e. Newbery, Caldecott, and others) was announced. You can read my thoughts about the winners here. Mostly I just wanted to note that Louise and I enjoyed watching them together. Lulu was too busy reading to notice.
9. Our paperwhites have bloomed! A funny story to go along with that is the fact that when I first noticed their fragrance, I thought it was really. . . bad. 
The scent has grown on me, but at first I couldn’t figure out what it was for the life of me, and I thought I had some major cleaning to do!
All in all, really not a bad week, right? Right! The usual was more or less done, too–lots of reading (Lulu’s required book was The Minstrel in the Tower), some writing, some history (Frederick Barbarrossa and St. Francis this week), and Steady Eddie is discussing energy with the girls for Saturday Science. (Yes, I just coined that title!) Another high point of the week was that Louise read several pages from A Grain of Rice by Demi of her own volition in the van on the way to church on Wednesday night. Maybe that made up for our losing the Young Cam Jansen book she had been reading for practice earlier in the week, right?
You know, the blessings are there if we look for them. The biggest blessing this week was something that doesn’t relate much to school at all. I took the girls to have their hair cut at the salon inside Wal-Mart on Thursday afternoon, and I accidentally left my little point-n-shoot camera on the counter when I paid. I called this morning, hoping against hope that someone hadn’t picked it up and not turned it in, and–praise God!–the nice ladies at Cost Cutters still had it! My heart really did swell up with thanksgiving at that news. My cameras are an extension of my arm on most days, and my little one would’ve really been missed (not to mention expensive to replace).
I’ve just about decided to put my angst over Louise’s math lessons to rest by putting off anything formal until after we take our next week-long break, which is in two weeks. I plan to get things together that week. Until then, we’ll squeeze in math games and books when we can. The fact that she added two two-digit numbers this week in her head, completely out of the blue, helps me to realize that she’s doing okay and some of this stuff gets picked up atmospherically, somehow. :-)
How was your week?
I’m going to do something here that I almost never do: write up my (final?) thoughts about a book I haven’t finished. I picked up Beyond Opinion: Living the Faith We Defend, a collection of Christian apologetics articles edited by Ravi Zacharias, who also wrote a few of the articles himself, back before Christmas for this month’s 
I just closed the covers of A Tangled Web with a satisfied thump, and while I am not ready to tackle anything else by L.M. Montgomery right now, I am glad I re-read this one. A Tangled Web capitalizes on the thing I like most about L.M. Montgomery’s style of writing–that she can create and weave together a community of people, with all their fits and foibles, all the while maintaining a cohesive storyline. There really isn’t a main character in A Tangled Web, unless you count Aunt Becky Dark’s jug, the want of which has upended the lives of many a Dark and Penhallow. Instead we have the stories of various members of the two clans and how their lives have played out thus far, and how the legendary jug affects them. There are love triangles a-plenty in this story, with engagements made and broken, as well as the re-union of an estranged married couple who have lived separate and tortured lives for a decade. There are silly men and cantankerous women, a neglected child and enough rhapsodizing about wonderful houses to make any prosaically-minded person to wonder, “What’s wrong with me that I don’t feel exactly this way about my house? I mean, it’s nice, but sheesh!” There are also lots and lots of four-letter words, mostly damns, to the point that it becomes a 
I picked The Really Awful Musicians by John Manders up out the new books bin at our of our libraries thinking it looked like fun, and I was right. What I didn’t anticipate is how nicely this one would dovetail with our history studies! Yes, that’s right, this comical-looking picture book is actually based on something that really happened. Well, sort of. The story itself is somewhat fantastical, with a talking horse and some hyperbole, but the backstory is there. The picture book bit is the story of Piffaro, a young pipe and drum player, who flees his home when the king outlaws all music because it’s so bad (as in poorly played, not morally deficient). The musicians play well individually, but together, they aren’t . . . together. In a fit of exasperation, the king decrees that all musicians who stick around and are caught will be fed to the crocodiles living in the castle moat! As Piffaro runs for his life, he collects several other musicians: a contrabass player, a harpist, a mandolin player, and a sackbut player. The format of the book makes it a fun one to read and share, and Manders‘ illustrations are cartoonish (you can see examples 
Snow isn’t something we get much of around here (except
First, there’s 
Wilder Reading Challenge at Stray Thoughts
Running Away to Home by Jennifer Wilson. This book was selected by Carrie at 
History books are usually met with enthusiasm here at the House of Hope. Alphabet books, however, are not. In Ben Franklin: His Wit and Wisdom from A to Z, Alan Schroeder has written a nonfiction picture book that combines history (and and biography!) into an A to Z format that even my alphabet-dissing girls enjoy.
